


When it's Not Worth Dying For

by Myrtle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 21:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6255694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrtle/pseuds/Myrtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> His honor is a thing dead and buried, and he will enjoy his revenge cold. </i>
</p>
<p>Five times Loras didn't die for his king or queen, and one time he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When it's Not Worth Dying For

**1\. Margaery**

“Loras! You’re my Kingsguard, you were supposed to save me!” Margaery cries as she climbs out of the brook, wringing out her hair.

“I’m your _Queens_ guard,” Loras corrects, throwing down his wooden sword in frustration. “And I tried, but Garlan pushed me. It’s not fair, he’s the biggest, he shouldn’t get to be the monster!”

“You’d best get used to fighting people bigger than you, little brother.” Garlan says. "Else you'll never win."

Loras draws himself up to his full nine-year-old height. “Fine, I _will,”_ he says. “I’ll beat you, just you wait, and Willas, and—and—Ser Jaime, and Ser Barristan, and whoever else!”

“Oh, you’re quite ambitious, are you?” Garlan teases. “Taking down the Kingsguard singlehandedly?”

By this point Loras has forgotten all about the game. He is enraged at Garlan for making fun of him, and he can't help stomping his foot childishly. “I will! I’ll be a _real_ Kingsguard one day, you’ll see. No, I’ll be _Lord Commander!_ And my king will never die, because I’ll always save him. I’ll—I’ll _die_ for him if I need to!”

“Loras! Stop it!” Margaery cries, suddenly on the verge of tears, and Loras remembers she is only seven and a girl, and doesn’t understand the glories of battle. He feels bad for scaring her, so he clasps her hand and says, “Sorry, Marg. I won’t die, I promise.”

But part of him can’t stop wishing for a handsome, heroic king, and a chance to die defending him.

 

* * *

  

**2\. Renly**  

He pledges his sword, his love, his very life to Renly, and he knows that Renly will be king and Loras will be by his side for the rest of their days, and no man nor weapon can harm Renly so long as Loras is there. Sometimes Loras thinks he is the luckiest of them, for if one of them were to die, it would be Loras in sacrifice for his king’s life, and Renly would have to live without him. But as Renly says, there is no point to worrying about terrible things that will not come to pass, for everything is as it should be, the gods are smiling on them, life is just like in the songs.

Until the night when his king is stolen by something he cannot even touch, something the sword that served him so well could never cut, and everything is screaming and darkness and emptiness and death. When it is over he knows that his king is dead (along with, they tell him, two of his sworn brothers), and yet he somehow, impossibly, unforgivably, seems to still be alive.

Or at least, to not be dead.

 

* * *

  

**3\. Joffrey**

Joffrey’s wedding is a chaos of music and dancing and absurd entertainments and a ridiculous overabundance of food and the king and the Imp taunting each other and Loras does not care a whit about any of it. He stands on the dais, looking at the festivities without watching them. His eyes slide over the people without registering any of them, as if he is not really there. _(Maybe I’m_ not _here,_ he thinks. _Maybe I’m as dead as Renly. Maybe I’m a ghost, a stone statue, anything but me. Maybe I’m dead, and the gods aren’t wrong, and my vow was true, and I owe no allegiance to this boy. Yes, and maybe Renly and I will run off to live with the snarks and grumpkins and unicorns.)_

Loras isn’t sure how long Joffrey’s been choking and writhing about on the floor before he finally realizes that the king is dying. He knows this is the part where he’s supposed to go help him, but he cannot come up with a single reason why he should.

_There is your king,_ he thinks. _Here is your white sword. He needs you. Go to him. Save him._

But he stands there watching Garlan pound the king on the back and Cersei wail and his grandmother shout for someone to do something, and they all seem so impossibly far away. There are whole worlds between him and the rest of the people in the hall, whole lifetimes between him and the person who was delighted to pledge his life for his king, and his legs feel heavy as stone and he is far too tired to cross worlds for a cruel, stupid boy.

In the midst of the chaos, Margaery and the Queen of Thorns’ eyes meet, and Loras dully wonders if they are behind the whole thing. He wouldn’t put it past them. Nor would he put it past them to keep him in the dark, to make him let another king die.

Joffrey turns blue and thrashes and then turns horridly still as the life drains from him.

Loras thinks, _Let it. He never deserved it._

He thinks, _He is no king of mine._

He thinks, _He is no king at all. He is dead._

He does not care.

 

* * *

 

**4\. Tommen**

He is the first up the walls at Dragonstone, chasing the battle-fever that brings him, if not happiness, at least some kind of purpose. The arrows that lodge themselves in his leg and shoulder, and the mace he takes to the chest, are not so kind as to kill him, and the screaming pain they cause does not matter at all, so he continues on. Up and up the inner curtain walls, towards the steel dance that awaits on the other side, the dance he has been doing all his life. He hardly thinks of the men following him, or the boy king he is ostensibly fighting for, or the Tyrells who will mourn him should he not return. He hardly thinks at all, because if he does, it will be only of the battle he did not fight. He will fight this one.

And then comes the oil. It is golden and steaming and all the sudden it is everywhere, pouring over the walls like some hellish waterfall. It looks beautiful in a way, like liquefied sunlight in the dark night, and he welcomes it as it streams through his hair and sizzles on his armor. The screams of the other men waft up to him, but Loras does not scream. Oil and blood and tears mingle on his face, and he opens his mouth and scorching heat pours down his throat and fills him, and he laughs, and thinks this will be the end.

But then it isn’t. He awakens as a statue, a gargoyle, some grotesque thing made up entirely of agony or numbness, depending on how much milk of the poppy the maesters allow him. They tell him he may never hold a sword again, and he thinks, _Then I should never live again._ But he is nothing if not a fighter, so he insists the bandages come off, and ignores the screaming in his hands when he picks up a sword, and relishes the stares of maidens who no longer find him beautiful.

 

* * *

 

**5\. Stannis**

Tommen has been buried, and Myrcella crowned and buried, by the time Loras is again able to don armor and control a sword well enough to fight, so he finds himself sworn to King Stannis. His miraculous recovery earns him a place of honor beside Stannis in the battle to hold King’s Landing against the Dragon Queen. Loras stands with his king and wonders why he is serving this man, this kinslayer who brought about the end of everything Loras wanted. He thinks on broken vows and unfulfilled ones, and finds he feels no instinct to guard this king. Willas and the Tyrell women are safe at Highgarden, and Garlan and his father can fend for themselves, and his honor is a thing dead and buried, and he will enjoy his revenge cold.

Daenerys flies above them on her great black beast. Stannis never sees the jet of flame burning toward him. Loras does. Loras says nothing, and does nothing. He stands aside and watches his king, barking orders one moment and the next nothing but a pile of ash. The men around him are screaming in terror or triumph, but Loras is silent.

 

* * *

 

**6\. Daenerys**

The Others are like no opponent Loras has faced before; they betray no hatred or fear as they approach, and Loras knows if you puncture them you will not be rewarded by seeing their life pour out. His hand aches for his own sword, not the queer dragonglass he has been issued, and his feet cannot seem to find a comfortable stance atop the icy Wall. The black brothers say the Others can be defeated with dragonglass, but as Loras looks down on the creatures pouring out of the forest and scaling the Wall, he can’t imagine the endless waves of them ever being stopped. When they reach the top, their movements are strangely elegant, and inhuman enough to make Loras doubt that he can predict their actions well enough to beat them at swordplay, as he has always been able to do. He is surrounded by ice and death, and there is nothing warm or good for leagues around, and so far as Loras can tell, nothing worth fighting for even beyond that. Loras has seen too many battles, suffered too many wounds, narrowly escaped too many near-deaths. Enough. He is through.

His old master-at-arms would say there is no glory in falling to these strange icy creatures, but Loras does not need glory now. He only needs a king or queen to die for, and a sword to do the job. The first flies above him, gleaming in her battle-armor, and the second is before him, thin and deadly. The Other holding it meets his eyes with its own, and their blueness matches the ones he still sees every night. Loras smiles (as always, welcoming the tug of the scars on his face when he does so) and waits. The Other is never confused by his failure to defend himself. It thrusts its terrible mirrored blade, and Loras feels it scream through him, and he is cold, and he is warm.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno, this has been a WIP forever and I just decided to finally get the thing posted. Please ignore my extremely tenuous post-canon predictions.


End file.
